In particular, the alliance of anti-marriage equality groups which have vocally demonstrated against attempts to legalize marriage equality under the Tsai administration developed out of groups opposing sexual and gender education in Taiwanese schools which they understand as encouraging and normalizing homosexuality and other forms of sexual behavior they see as deviant. The possibility of marriage equality being legalized in Taiwan after the election of the Tsai administration, which promised the legalization of marriage equality in Taiwan as a campaign promise during 2016 presidential elections, led these groups to switch focus from opposing sexual education to opposing marriage equality itself, organizing under the mantle of the “Protect The Family Alliance.”

The strong showing by anti-marriage equality groups in demonstrations last year was successful in allowing recalcitrant elements of the DPP to back off or even reverse course on the push to legalize marriage equality. The large numbers of demonstrators that the “Protect The Family Alliance” was able to mobilize was shocking to many, since it was expected that by many beforehand that because of Taiwanese society’s relatively progressive nature, the legalization of marriage equality would not pose a significant challenge. As many member organizations of the “Protect The Family Alliance” were Christian fundamentalist groups, much of society had also not realized beforehand that Christian fundamentalist groups were present in such numbers in Taiwanese society, and this took many by surprise. In backing off from marriage equality, very probably elements of the DPP were never so strongly in favor of legalizing marriage equality to begin with, despite the fact that this was one Tsai’s campaign promises.

On the other hand, with the recent switch to demonstrating against drugs, it may seem as if members of the “Alliance Of Crying For Hope” are switching their primary issue to something completely unrelated to sexual or gender education or marriage equality. Nevertheless, in line with demonstrating against sexual and gender education and marriage equality in the name of “protecting the family” and “protecting the children,” the aim of such protests is to paint gays as part of Taiwan’s drug problem and morally degenerate in that way, as linked to attempts to portray the casual usage of drugs as prevalent in the gay community as evidenced through the spread of HIV, and tied to the attitudes of sexual promiscuity they see as rampant in the gay community.

Indeed, returning to the need for better forms of sexual education or drug education in Taiwan, many myths still prevail about HIV and the means by which it spreads, leading to past incidents of discrimination against HIV positive individuals from institutions that really should no better, such as schools, government agencies, or the police, as we see in the case of the expulsion of an HIV positive high school student last year. But obviously this provides a useful leverage point for groups as the “Alliance Of Crying For Hope” and their ilk to try and gain traction for their views in Taiwanese society.

Photo credit: Brian Hioe

Through stigmatizing LGBTQ individuals and drug users, this would be the “Alliance Of Crying For Hope” bringing together two highly conservative and reactionary ideologies in Taiwanese society, not only with regard to discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community but in regards to how drug users are sometimes treated as though they have ceded their humanity in many societies. Whatever one says about the progressive nature of mainstream Taiwanese society, there, too, is a sharply reactionary undercurrent to Taiwanese society, as one can observe in the social attitudes that the “Alliance Of Crying For Hope”, “Protect The Family Alliance” and other groups are hoping to tap into.

The targeting of the LGBTQ community using social stigmas regarding drug usage is evidence of the utterly reactionary nature of the “Alliance Of Crying For Hope”. But in that respect, what this points to is that even if marriage equality were to be legalized, a long walk that needs to be walked in terms of changing social attitudes in Taiwan and fighting conservative views within Taiwanese society.

Brian Hioe was one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance writer on social movements and politics, and occasional translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018.

One Response

Regardless of belief, DNA can be gay!
DNA is unable to categorize sexuality into two tidy boxes of male and female. Rather, human sexuality is better equated to the infinite mosaic of humanity and nature itself.
For these people, their “nontraditional” sexual orientation is certainly not a nefarious choice, as claimed by some. The only immorality here lies with those who judge people whose DNA defies a simplistic binary. Whether and whom to marry should be their choice, their civil right.http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2017/03/27/2003667537

Good work Brian!

About New Bloom

New Bloom is an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific, founded in Taiwan in 2014 in the wake of the Sunflower Movement. We seek to put local voices in touch with international discourse, beginning with Taiwan.